madtuna

I was speaking to a couple who were in the aussie show and they were telling me how once when they were chiselling a small nugget from caprock, either the producer or camera operator got all excited and remarked how it was the first piece of gold he had actually seen dug up.

They also told me gold had been buried and dug up sometimes up to three or four times for different camera angles and drone footage.

Also mention of nuggets supplied from a dealer in Kalgoorlie and filmed being dug up.

14 hours ago, Gold Hound said:

Its just ridiculous scripted b.s.

They were chasing me to be on their show but I scared them off by telling them what they would have to do to follow me safely in the 40+heat and how much they would have to spend.

I still wouldn't have been interested in sharing the screen with Parker unless they would PAY me properly. None of the people on these 'reality shows' get payed properly they just get tidbits and 15min of fame.

Can't be any worse than that Aussie show.

They did a fair amount of filming on our station, didn't even have the courtesy of letting us know they were here. Left an absolute mess!

Got asked if I would be willing to come roaring in, in my Perentie with rifles on display and play the role of irrational irate pastoralist.

Did you watch it???

It said so in the first line and then shows a bloke stuffing a detector into it.

One day you'll post something nice about Minelab Reg and it'll be one of two things...you're on your death bed trying to make good with god or your accounts been hacked.

To clarify, what I mean is if you are constantly digging 12 to 18 inch holes in concrete hard rock strewn ground, you need a good and larger heavy duty pick.

I'm sure your pick is a beauty and I don't want to take away from that but it looks a bit light on...the blade is obviously the front part cut off a shovel as can been seen by the indent in the middle. 

I can see some of the ground you've pictured resembles some of ours, and I'm afraid I'd kill that pick in under a week by either snapping the handle or bending the blade. Even if I didn't, frustration and fatigue would see me lobbing down a mineshaft.

You need a pick to do the work, not you to work the pick.

Thank god your pick has a lifetime guaranty then....you're going to need it

Jeez JR!! That is dangerous terrain.

Must be hard keeping your mind focussed on those faint signals while also listening for that faint whistle of a golf ball heading your way! 

14 minutes ago, kiwijw said:

I can just see madtuna's pictures with not one spec of green....and definitely NO water, let alone running water. Ok....might not have the hills you have but he lives & works in a very dry, hot & barren land. Out in the sticks of WA. Thats Western Australia. Land of diesel & dust. Oh.....& gold....Aye mad fish....

JW 🤠

got my first lawn happening in over 2 years after we got 40mm of rain.

Like a proud father I was....

got up the next morning to go sing to it and some damn roo had snuck in during the night and stole it!!!

should have fenced the bugger off!

14 minutes ago, Aureous said:

GPR for use on the goldfields and versions thereof were trialed, developed, altered, modified and re-trialed many times over the years and all failed to live up to expectations due to the mineralized ground conditions. 1st one I saw was back in the 90's. Various European and US companies attempted it.

And numerous European and Chinese companies still flog them off at prices that make a GPZ look like pocket money.

They swear they are the ultimate for gold detecting and people with either more money than brains, or no money and a bank loan with unrealistic dreams still buy them.

I'm yet to hear of one actually work to detect nuggets.

Yep...mine developed a line down the screen and ML said send it in and they'd fix it free of charge even though it's a couple of years out of warranty. I would, but I'm still using it and need it. The line doesn't affect anything anyway. If it were to get too bad then yeah I might send it in.

I don't abuse mine, but I use it the way it was intended and it does get bashed and knocked and bounced around in the back of the ute and has bounced off the quad a few times.

It might not look pretty but it has never skipped a beat or broken a thing and works as good as the day I got it.....better actually with the upgrades.

5 year old is nothing, age is not the concern...condition is.

Dude….that's a leisurely frolic we do most mornings in our thongs before brekkie!

Nice pics!

can you explain that for a dumb aussie? what is a 20" python...as here it's a small harmless snake, and why not detect back to the car rather than shoulder it?

So it wasn't verified. 

1 hour ago, phrunt said:

 

We'll see what turns out with the NF coils, I suspect they'll be making them mostly for use in tough Australian conditions and made so they run stable and quiet as they can in those conditions so I expect the X-coils will remain the stronger coil of the two but we'll have to wait and see on that one but as a comparison the GPX X-coils are far quieter/more stable than my Nugget Finder EVO even though they're more sensitive, I wish manufacturers made coils for Mild soils and another coil for use in Mineralised soils, I don't want a dumbed down coil just because someone in another country needs it, the same probably goes for detectors to an extent.

Glad to see you back after laying low and no poachers stole your giant nugget 🙂

What gives you the impression they'd be dumbed down??

Any "dumbing down" would be done by the user via the detector.

If they work in Aust, no doubt they'd kill it where you are.

Very fortunate to detect in areas where there is next to nil junk targets., maybe 49 out of 50 will be gold and the 50th will be a projectile usually in perfect condition except for rifling marks.

Now I don't for a minute believe I can tell the difference between lead or gold and as a rule dig every signal.

But I have worked areas before where you come across a pile of shotgun pellets and after digging about 5 or 6 you have a fair indication of what the remaining signals are and just wave over them.

But then you will get that one signal, sounds exactly the same as the others but something in your mind tells you to dig it...and it's gold.

You they go back and dig all the ones you waved over and the rest you would have waved over and they are as you suspected just more shotgun pellets. 

What in your subconscious made you dig that one target that sounded like all the rest?

29 minutes ago, Lacky said:

Is a pastoral lease a grazing lease on public land? We call them grazing leases here so just trying to see if its the same thing. Here the grazing lease just gives the right to graze cattle on the land but no other control over the land. It's still public land and anyone can do any activity allowed on any other public land. 

Probably similar. But you do have a certain amount of rights regarding development , use, infrastructure, roads, dwellings, water etc.

Crown land can be covered by a number of different leases at the same time. Pastoral, Mineral etc. Each type of lease is covered by different acts of parliament.

Basically, if crown land is covered by a lease you cannot just do as you please, you have to abide by the acts governing those leases.

Some times sounds complicated but in reality it is rather simple and quite workable.

Vacant crown land is open to anybody, and anyone can peg a lease upon it. However you still have to abide by the regulations in the Crown Lands act.

he recognised it from farcebook, so did his mates...and so will their mates...and their mates.....

That park will soon be on the banned list as every man and his dog will have it looking like a mine field

12 hours ago, Erik Oostra said:

Madtuna, i thought it would've been the go to pull into the property homestead first.. even if you have a 'golden ticket' to prospect.. it's sad to think that this isn't the norm anymore.. 

You would think so, under their miners right they are supposed to do thier best to contact the pastoralist, but they rarely do. With the 40E permit they are supposed to send a copy to us, but they rarely do.

What is really disheartening is when forum members who know what they are supposed to do and all profess to do the right thing, travel 3000+ klms across the country yet can't travel an extra 30klms to let me know they're here. Not even an email or a phone call. Yet my name, phone number, email and every detail down to what socks I have on is plastered on the same forums they inhabit.

Watched a yootoob a couple of years ago posted on an Aussie prospecting forum of a bunch of half drunken prospectors at a camp shooting the crap out of anything that moved or didn't move. What a really good look to inspire confidence and trust in the prospecting community.

Read on another Aussie prospecting forum where one prospector was saying how when he and his mates go prospecting, if they see a cattle beast without ear marks or ear tags it's wild cattle and doesn't live long. This clown is a minelab dealer and I pray that's not the sort of info he advises his customers to follow.

In WA (rightly or wrongly)there's no shooting on crown land like in some states. There's no shooting on pastoral leases without a Pastoral letter. There's definitely no shooting on mining company ground. Half our cattle are wild and don't have ear marks or ear tags until such times as we manage to catch them in a muster.

Unfortunately there seems to be a bit of a mentality with many that because you have a $25 miners right, and because you are in the WA outback and it's huge you can go where you please and do as you please.

So confrontations will always be inevitable.

Quite often unfortunately.

Often come across prospectors camped at wells who get a bit narky when I make them move camp. Same when I come across them with dogs or guns, have had to involve the fuzz a number of times.

Last night I spotted some lights just of the road so chucked a U-turn to check it out as you do out here (and as we are entitled to do being it's our Pastoral station) 

Pulled up , turned my motor off and yelled "hello! This is Steve from Erlistoun Station, just checking if you're okay, not broken down or anything".

Next minute the rear of the van flies open and a raving mad woman comes running at me with what looked like a cut down pick handle. The fuzz are dealing with her this morning.

They shoot our cattle, mills, tanks, steal our solar panels, diesel and what ever else isn't nailed down.

Starting to think I might be the odd one out...but I'm sure I'm not. As for the detectors, yep they are heavy, but not heavy enough to be a worry (for me) The harness works well and is comfortable (again for me) and negates the weight. I don't feel trussed up or tied to the machine. The proswing runs rings around the old ML harnesses and I quite like it.

Just like anything else... cars, tools etc if something is not quite right, I adapt and find a work around until it is.

I would have much preferred 7000 performance and tech in the old GPX style set up. But I won't blame ML for giving us what we got. They read forums and listened to what the majority wanted and gave us exactly what they asked for..... CTX style, battery included, GPS. wireless.... They even sold it to us at a price we said we'd be willing to pay.

Not what I would have asked for, but it works and works well especially when used in conjunction with the 2300

yep one right under each earhole. works for me as I find head phones uncomfortable in summer

I don't feel trussed up like a turkey Reg. 2 clips and it's on. I need to put my duel speakers and my booster somewhere and a harness makes sense and it carries my water too.

I carry my pick on my shoulder, so In 42 degrees heat like yesterday the strap of the proswing stops the pick burning a permanent imprint into my shoulder and guards against that horrible burning flesh smell.

I can put the detector down and walk away with the harness on. Works well for me!

Completely the opposite below the equator. Pretty much the whole of Australia is in drought, and no end in sight.☹️

Honestly the worst I can remember it here. I've never seen camels so bad, absolutely nothing for them in the desert so they're invading the pastoral lands in record numbers.

Just reading this morning of the drought in Africa, about the same as here. Horrible pictures of dead elephants bogged in mud of dried up lakes.